Field of Fire
by GilraenDernhelm
Summary: Part 3 of 'Be The Lightning In Me.' Sequel to 'Hour of the Wolf.' Slightly inspired by 'The Lord of the Rings.'
1. Chapter 1

In his heart, Jaime had always known. From the moment she had said 'I am of the North,' he had known. But he had hoped.

Fuck hope. And fuck belief.

Tomorrow, they would face the armies of the King in the North before the walls of Winterfell. She would be one of that Northern mass. She might have to sneak, and she might have to hide, but she would be there, no matter what anyone told her to do. He hoped they met. That way he could knock her out cold and hide her somewhere safe till the fighting was over. His wife the traitor. He could worry about getting her absolved later. Because the North would surrender. Everyone always surrendered. Daenerys had dragons.

Earlier that evening, the Queen had called him back after dismissing the rest of her commanders.

'Ser Jaime,' she had murmured to him, 'during tomorrow's battle, the gods may see fit to place your wife in your path.'

'If they do, I will do my duty, Khaleesi,' he had responded stiffly.

Daenerys had nodded thoughtfully.

'Ser Jaime. If you kill your wife tomorrow, I will have you executed. Is that understood?'

'But my oath, Khaleesi –'

'Fuck your oath. I would not have you survive this war only to die of grief straight afterwards.'

He had adored the little queen, then. She would be a far better ruler than her father.

When he returned to his tent, he found Tyrion swilling wine from a barrel in the corner.

'Wine the night before a battle, my dear brother?'

'I won't survive the battle otherwise.'

Tyrion looked ridiculous, his stunted legs jutting into the air as he lay on his back, pouring wine down his throat. He spluttered in fright as Jaime dropped his helmet onto the floor with a crash.

'You don't have to fight, you know,' Jaime snorted, his nose wrinkling.

'But of course I do!' Tyrion responded, 'if your dear little wolf bride intends to fight, I can hardly stay here, can I? A halfman is still more of a man than a woman!'

'Not if he's too drunk to stand.'

Ignoring Tyrion's protests, Jaime rolled the barrel out of the tent and gifted it to the guards.

'You are cruel, big brother!' Tyrion pouted, trying to go after the wine.

'What _is _the matter with you?' Jaime demanded, picking Tyrion up by the scruff of his neck and depositing him as far away from the flap of the tent as possible.

'I'm afraid!' Tyrion declared earnestly, falling onto his back again.

_That makes two of us_, Jaime thought.

_What if I don't find her? What if we don't meet? What if she's killed? What if _I _kill her, without knowing her? What if she's burned alive, decapitated, raped, run through, all her limbs lopped off?_

She may be small, but she's quick and brilliant. You should be worrying about the people who get in her way.

_I can't. I hope she kills them all._

Jaime had seen Tyrion and Visenya briefly on the ride North from the newly-surrendered King's Landing. He and Arya had chosen to leave them in the care of their great-uncle Edmure at Riverrun until the situation in the North was resolved; and it was on his way to help kill their mother, their uncles, their aunt, their cousins and their grandmother that Jaime had last seen them and had tried to explain. They had not understood.

'Please, Father, tell Queen Daenerys there's been a mistake,' Tyrion pleaded, 'Mother isn't a traitor.'

'She _isn't_!' Visenya echoed. Jaime half-smiled at his little lioness. He doubted she even knew what a traitor was. Tyrion did, though. He could see it in his son's face. A pity. It might have been possible to deceive a less-intelligent child.

'If you see Mother, _ask her,_' Visenya said, 'you just _ask _her. Then you'll see. Promise us.'

Jaime promised.

Tyrion. Visenya. What had two such golden children done to deserve parents who were continually abandoning them, doing things that made it necessary to hide their children away? What kind of lives would they lead, with a heretic for a father and a traitor for a mother, bearing the marks of two disgraced houses?

Things could be worse. Father had played his cards well in proving House Lannister's loyalty to the Targaryen Queen. It would only take a similar gesture from Robb Stark for Jaime's children to have the smallest chance of a normal life.

He snorted.

_You have no one to blame but yourself. None of this would have happened if you hadn't fucked Cersei._

You don't need the fucking goodwill of every petty lord in the kingdoms. You have Arya's. That's enough.

_And what about the children? Is that good enough for them?_

Realising that he wasn't going to get to sleep, Jaime wrapped himself up in his furs, pulled his boots on and left the tent, Tyrion's drunken snores whistling after him. It was bitingly cold outside. His breath gushed out of him like the white mist that hung thick in the air, and he looked across the plain at the fires burning on the walls of Winterfell as the guards on them kept watch. He would give anything to be behind those walls with Arya. But the Seven Kingdoms could not survive without the North; and breaking his allegiance to Daenerys would add another few centuries to the millennium's worth of disgrace that House Lannister had already accumulated because of him.

As Jaime moved through the camp towards the nearby woods, he cursed the cold in his bones that reminded him, at every step, that he was no longer a young man. His chest was aching, and his joints sometimes cracked when he walked. Arya had always accused him of being a grumpy old man. Perhaps she was right.

The woods would have been completely dark were it not for the snow and the shards of blue moonlight that struck the ice like sunlight on a mirror. He felt a fear of every shadow that he had not experienced since his earliest childhood, but the compulsion to continue and to warm up overcame his fear as he moved deeper and deeper into the dark.

Out of the snow before him reared a monstrous weirwood tree, its staring eyes and open mouth a form of terror, a form of exile, howling at him to keep away.

'_You're a Southerner,' Arya had said angrily to him, 'you don't understand these things.'_

She was right. He didn't. How could she pray to a horror like this?

But then a sudden wind stirred in the leaves of the tree, and in the sound, there was a kind of recognition that he couldn't account for. He'd never stood in front of one of these things in his life.

But then Jaime realised. In the northern wind, he heard Arya's voice; saw the grey silver of her eyes. The weirwood tree was of the North; as was she. The North was her, and she was the North.

'Old gods of the North,' he whispered, 'if it comes to a choice tomorrow – take me.'

Only the wind and the sound of trees answered him.


	2. Chapter 2

'No, please, no!'

Arya screamed and screamed as Bran was flung from his horse, the force of the fire so great that it ripped clean through the straps that bound his legs, sending him flying ten feet into the air, up and up on a pillar of fire, twisting him like a doll in the flames. When his body hit the ground, it was born upwards again in a tower of ash, ash where her beautiful, kind, soft-spoken brother had been. Arya vomited right where she was, driving her sword straight through a nearby Dothraki, who had charged her at the first sign of weakness. As his innards came ripping out of him, Arya hacked off his braid and dangled it mockingly in front of him before taking his head clean off his shoulders.

Arya spun around and mounted up again, steering her horse away from the flames. The walls of Winterfell and half of Robb's army had been obliterated within the first five minutes of battle as Daenerys' dragons attacked from the air. Arya had watched in horror as one breath from each of the beasts had left paths of desolation five hundred feet long, clouds of ash and dust remaining where men and horses had once breathed and where stone had stood sentinel for thousands of years. Robb and Rickon had both been commanding troops on the walls, and were almost certainly dead. Bran had been in charge of defending the main gate, and had said nothing when Arya had taken up her place beside him, her Stark armour making her as conspicuous as he was.

They had all heard of the cities engulfed in the fiery inferno of Daenerys' dragons, but no description had prepared them for this. Arya had screamed out to Bran as the largest of the dragons had swooped down on Winterfell's central court, but his horse was panicking, driving him closer to the flames. As Arya had dismounted, drawing Needle to slice through the straps of Bran's saddle and to gut the damn horse if she had to, he had burned to death right in front of her.

As the last remaining Stark on the field, it fell to her to lead the attack. Looking around her, she realised that there was almost no attack left to lead. There was pandemonium. The men were driven mad with fear; most of them falling out of ranks and fighting each other, many flinging down their weapons and deserting. Daenerys' soldiers were mopping up the confusion with practiced, elegant ease. Arya was furious. There were women and children taking refuge in Winterfell's Keep, and though she knew that Sansa and Mother would lie, cheat, jest and threaten in order to keep their spirits up, the women would have to be stunningly stupid not to realise what was happening.

'Fuck!' she screamed as she was flung out of her saddle, landing hard in the snow.

As she rose to her feet, her knees buckling under her from the impact, the rider she had collided with raised his banner and roared out her name, making her hair stand on end. It was Greatjon Umber.

Arya's eyes flickered from the Greatjon, to the banner, and back again, and an idea formed in her mind. All she really needed was someone with a banner and a big mouth.

Lord Umber understood her before she spoke, riding off at once and raising the direwolf banner above his head.

'Defend the Keep, you miserable bastards! Pull back to the Keep!'

Once Arya had yanked her aching body back into the saddle, she too took up the call.

_My voice is perhaps less impressive than Jon Umber's_, she thought, _but even if only one person hears me…_

'Pull back to the Keep, you stupid fucks!' she screamed, 'There are women and children there! Pull back!'

Incredibly, the news somehow spread, and men began to run for the Keep. Perhaps being reminded of family made people realise that dying was sometimes worth it.

_Jaime_.

She was suddenly engulfed in a hailstorm of arrows, spears and attacks both from cavalry and footsoldiers. The dragon bitch's commanders had noticed what was happening. So much the better. Now she could kill more of them.

Arya spurred her horse into a gallop, slicing her sword in a wide arc around her, riding men down, cutting them in two, her screams alternating between obscenities aimed at her enemies and at her own men.

'Form up!' she bellowed as she reached the hundreds of men already assembled at the Keep, the Greatjon's shouts still echoing from the field, 'Form up! Commanders, report to me! Archers to the back of the ranks, bows trained on the sky! Shoot anything that moves!'

_Though I don't think that will help much._

By the time the Greatjon arrived, she had disbanded the companies that had suffered the heaviest losses, using the survivors to reinforce the others. The men, thrilled to be shouted at by someone who sounded like they had a plan, formed up immediately and without complaint.

'What the fuck do we do now?' Arya muttered to the Greatjon.

'We die like Men of the North, my lady,' he replied gruffly, 'and pray that the Targaryen whore points her dragons at us rather than at the fucking Keep.'

'Couldn't we try and lure her away from the Keep?'

'She's inbred, my lady, not stupid.'

Arya scowled. So they were all going to die.

But as she looked around her at the columns of men emerging from bedlam, she realised that the idea didn't bother her. There was no better way to die than this.

'My lady,' the Greatjon said, 'go into the Keep, to your mother and sister, and the women and children. Save –'

He was silenced by the undisguised disgust on her face and inclined his head at her.

'Your father would be proud, Lady Stark.'


	3. Chapter 3

When Jaime ripped open the flap to Daenerys' tent, he found Tyrion, sober, alert and veritably covered in blood, clutching a double-sided battle-axe and giving the Dragon the same news he had come to deliver.

'We had them well-scattered before Lord Umber picked up that fucking banner,' Tyrion declared, breathing hard, 'most of the army has fallen back to the Keep, where Lady Arya somehow succeeded in getting them back in ranks.'

Daenerys nodded grimly. She knew full well that a banner and a commanding voice were all it took to turn whimpering mice into lions. The walls of fire outside danced like priests of the Lord of Light in Daenerys' silver hair, but she remained silent. Jaime knew she had no desire to slaughter a single one of the Northerners, or their womenfolk.

'Make an end of it, Khaleesi,' Ser Jorah Mormont counseled coldly, 'send your dragons to the Keep; kill the soldiers. The women will surrender after that.'

Jaime wanted to cut his tongue out.

_Arya is there. My wife is there, you miserable son of a whore._

Daenerys did not look pleased, 'We should send a man to offer terms of peace.'

There was a long, excruciatingly awkward silence, and Jaime's heart ached for her. She had a gentle heart. Still. Perhaps she always would.

'Your Grace,' Ser Barristan began, 'the Northmen will never surrender now, or even listen to terms of peace. The Greatjon has given them too good a reason to fight.'

_My _wife _gave them a reason to fight, you old fool._

Ser Barristan continued.

'There is no other way. You cannot –'

'Silence,' Daenerys interrupted, her voice deathly quiet.

She was scrutinising the map of the North on the table before her; three tiny model dragons representing Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion deployed to each end of Winterfell.

_Don't listen to them_, Jaime thought, _please don't listen to them. There must be another way_.

_Old gods of the North, protect my stubborn wolf child from harm, gift her armies with the power of the North, give her strength in battle, do not let her perish this way, please please please_

'Sending my children to deal with the rebels would ensure minimal loss of life to my own army,' Daenerys said, 'but these men – and this woman – have fought bravely and well, and only remain in the field to protect those they love. They deserve an honourable death that men will sing of when all of us are rotting in the ground. Drogon, Rhaegal and Viserion will remain here, with me. The rest of you will return to your companies and march on the Northmen. You are not to storm the Keep under any circumstances, or to loot the bodies of the slain. Let's show some respect.'

Daenerys turned to the leader of her Unsullied.

'Grey Worm. The Unsullied are to enforce my orders should any soldier choose to disobey them. If any man tries to storm the Keep, slay him at once.'

Grey Worm bowed his head.

'As my Queen commands.'

_She is magnificent_, Jaime thought as he left the tent, _Rhaegar Targaryen reborn. A genius with a touch of the theatrical. And now I can find Arya and get her away from the fighting_.

As he rejoined his company and roared out Daenerys' orders, his heart soared.

_I may be here are the end, _he thought, _but at least I'm going to see her again._


	4. Chapter 4

_YES!_ Arya thought, swept up in the first clash between the Dragon's army and her own, s_he is giving us an honourable death. Maybe she's not such a bitch after all._

Arya's blood ran red hot in her veins as she fought and killed one man after the other, the memory of Bran impeding her vision, the thought of Robb and Rickon forcing its way into her mind each time she caught sight of the flames that still burned, high as castle walls, across the field of fire. Had the dragonfire been hot enough to give them a quick death? Had they suffered?

_Perhaps not,_ hope sang to her.

_There's no worse way to die, stupid,_ experience spat in response.

All of them dead. Father, Robb, Bran, Rickon. Her heart hunted in the darkness for Jon, far away on the Wall. He hadn't come. His commanders had probably caught him trying to desert. It was the kind of thing he would do.

The women in the Keep were singing.

'Gentle Mother, font of mercy, save our sons from war, we pray…'

'_I wish I could come with you and fight,' Sansa had said as she bade her farewell. _

_Arya had been flabbergasted._

'_The women and children of Winterfell need you and Mother,' Arya had replied, 'they need someone brave to help them. Plus, you've never swung a sword in your life, you stupid.'_

_Sansa had laughed at that. Arya had put one hand on Sansa's shoulder._

'_Sister, if anything happens to me –'_

'_Arya, don't talk that way –'_

'– _and if something also happens to Jaime –'_

'_I'm not listening!'_

'– _don't let Tywin have my children. Promise me. Don't let him have them. Raise them with yours. Bring them up Northern. Let them be who they want. Promise me.'_

_Sansa was crying, so Arya embraced her, feeling ridiculous, as she always did, next to her tall and beautiful sister._

'_Promise me,' Arya said._

_Sansa sniffed loudly and wiped her eyes._

'_I swear it by the old gods and the new.'_

Arya drove her sword into the throat of an Unsullied, his blood spraying across her breastplate, the direwolf upon it lapping the blood of her prey from its jaws.

Her children. Tyrion and Visenya. The strange, golden beings that she and Jaime had made together. Did they think she had betrayed them as well as the Queen?

_I should have written them a letter_, Arya thought, _I should have explained._

_Or I should have been less selfish. I should have chosen them. All I've shown them is that what I want is more important that what they need. I should have been a mother. I should have been a wife._

As the thought occurred to her, she spotted Jaime, not ten feet away from her, his crimson and gold enameled armour bloodstained, but with barely a scratch on it. She smiled. Some things never changed.

When he recognised her, he reversed his sword in his hand, the blade clutched in his gauntlet, the pommel pointing upwards.

Arya seethed with fury. He meant to knock her out and hide her till the fighting was done.

_Think again, Lannister. You'll have to kill me first._

Through the sea of spears, raised swords and lances, Arya saw that a rider was approaching Jaime from the left. For a moment, she remained unconcerned. Jaime could take him. But her husband did not seem to notice him, the terrible green eyes in the slit of his visor trained on her, and only her.

Arya spurred her horse towards him, gesticulating wildly.

'Jaime! JAIME!'

_**Why wasn't he looking?**_

The rider was almost upon him now, and Jaime still seemed blissfully ignorant of his existence, riding closer towards him. She was screaming obscenities and warnings and nothings, but Jaime kept on riding.

_Does the fool think I'm trying to distract him?_

Arya saw the rider raise his spear and arm, her husband paying her screams no heed. She stood up in her stirrups and braced herself, praying that she still knew how to do this, remembering Syrio's words to her a lifetime ago.

'_There is only one God, and his name is Death.'_

And she threw herself out of the saddle, into the path of the spear.


	5. Chapter 5

The world turned upside down as Jaime was flung from his horse. He landed on the ground in a heap, Arya half on top of him, the breath knocked from his lungs, his armour sending painful metallic tremors though his skin and into his bones. He had no idea what had just happened, and while he was a patient man when it came to Arya's eccentricities, her decision to unseat both of them mid-battle was so rash and so stupid that he decided to have a word with her about it immediately.

'Wife,' he grunted, 'Wife!'

The resulting wheeze from her lungs made him sit up immediately, the pain in his body forgotten.

His stubborn wolf child lay flat on her back, a longspear piercing her chest. It was a terrific blow, having punctured both the steel and the boiled leather beneath. He could say nothing but her name.

'Arya. Arya!'

Her eyes were open, but the light in them was dimming, their silver northern twilight turning black. She was trying to smile and trying to speak, but the blood was flooding her mouth, choking her.

Jaime screamed for a maester, knowing it was no good, and tilted her face to the side to let the blood out of her mouth, knowing that was no good either. Arya's gauntleted hand took his, and he could tell from the fierce way she grasped it that she would have been screaming in pain were she with anyone else.

_She is trying to spare me._

'MAESTER!' he bellowed.

'Jaime,' she whispered.

Her eyes were fixed on his with frightful intensity. She was so beautiful. So small, and so beautiful.

'Jaime.'

'Shut up, wife. Wait for the maester to come before you start complaining.'

'I love…you.'

And suddenly her eyes turned black, and her breath no longer came.

Jaime had no idea how long he sat there, men killing and mutilating each other around him, Arya's tiny gauntleted hand still clasped in his.

_What in seven hells had happened?_

The tip of a spear erupted from Jaime's chest as though to answer his question, identical in size and shape to the horror protruding obscenely from Arya's.

As he fell to the ground beside her and died, he barely felt the pain.

It was nothing compared to the guilt.


	6. Epilogue

Visenya refused to believe that Mother and Father were never coming back. Aunt Sansa and Grandmother Catelyn had explained it to her and Tyrion, their beautiful blue eyes flooded with tears, but she didn't listen to them. They didn't understand. Mother and Father always came back. They always left, but they also always came back.

They were leaving for Winterfell today. Aunt Sansa and Grandmother Catelyn had come to Riverrun especially to fetch her and Tyrion. They'd bent the knee to the silver queen, who had made Aunt Sansa Warden of the North. Apparently the people who helped the Queen had been cross because Aunt Sansa was a girl, and girls weren't allowed to do things. The Queen had told them to shut up, because there must always be a Stark in Winterfell. Visenya had only been to Winterfell once, when she was very small, and even she knew that. She wondered why the Queen's helpers didn't. Tyrion was frightened to go North, but Visenya didn't care. Anywhere was better than Casterly Rock.

Aunt Sansa came to her chamber with a present wrapped in paper. Visenya recognised it immediately. It was Mother's sword, in two pieces. Visenya wrinkled her nose. She would much have preferred Father's sword. It was long and sharp, and could probably do some damage. Mother's little toothpick couldn't kill anyone. But Tyrion was the boy, so Tyrion got the bigger sword. It was so unfair.

'Why's it so short?' Visenya demanded.

'It has been snapped in half,' Aunt Sansa replied, her voice breaking.

Visenya rolled her eyes. She was crying _again_.

'Queen Daenerys rescued it from the battlefield,' her aunt continued, 'and I know your mother would want you to have it.'

Visenya frowned.

'But how can I fight with a broken sword?'

'You can't.'

Aunt Sansa bent over and stroked Visenya's hair.

'So take it to the smithy, little lady! Quick, quick, before we leave!'

Visenya snatched the two halves of the blade out of Aunt Sansa's hands, ignoring her warnings not to cut herself, and raced down to the forge. Great-Uncle Edmure had never allowed her in there before.

'The forge is no place for girls,' he had said.

How would _he _know?

Visenya almost battered down the smithy door in excitement.

'I want this forged!' she shouted loudly at the smith, who had looked up in alarm as she entered.

'Yes, m'lady,' the smith mumbled, taking the broken blade from her and laying it one side.

'NOW!' Visenya demanded.

The smith shrugged.

'Can't do it now.'

'But we're leaving today, it has to be now!'

'My master won't let me –'

'Your master? Aren't you a real smith?'

He shrugged.

'Armourer's apprentice, m'lady.'

Visenya folded her arms.

'Well, Ser 'Armourer's Apprentice M'Lady,' I'm Visenya Lannister of Casterly Rock; my aunt's Warden of the North, and I'm going to come back and ask for you in one hour. If my sword isn't ready, I'll get my aunt to cut your head off. Understand?'

The armourer's apprentice looked bewildered, but gave her a small smile and bowed awkwardly.

'Understood, m'lady.'

Visenya nodded gravely and walked to the door. As she opened it, she turned back.

'Oh! What's your name? I need to know in case I chop the wrong person's head off.'

The armourer's apprentice plunged Needle into the flames.

'Gendry, if it please m'lady. Gendry Waters.'


End file.
